Papers by Nina Muller-Schwarze
WHEN THE RIVERS RUN BACKWARDS: FIELD STUDIES AND STATISTICAL ANALYSES OF CAMPESINO IDENTITY IN NORTHERN COCLE PROVINCE, REPUBLIC OF PANAMA, IN THE FACE OF THE PANAMA CANAL EXPANSION, 2008
This dissertation produces knowledge about peasants, called campesinos in the literature about Pa... more This dissertation produces knowledge about peasants, called campesinos in the literature about Panama, living in northern Cocle province. The geographical area of northern Cocle has been redefined over time; as an indigenous reserve promised to Victoriano Lorenzo and indigenous inhabitants of the region in the early twentieth
century, as national territory by the Omar Torrijos government, and, most recently, as
part of the Panama Canal watershed and spatialized as an area of extreme poverty by the
national government. The regional political organization and resistance movement Coordinadora Campesina Contra los Embalses (CCCE) is structured around the common identification of campesino. The CCCE employs liberation theology, and is allied with
indigenous groups and the transnational Catholic Church. Contemporary identification as peasants limits residents' recognition of land rights at the national level, although
ethnically they are indigenous cholos. Evidence from archival materials and oral history traces the CCCE political structure and resistance movement in a continuous and active struggle for land rights throughout many generations. Symbols such as boundary lines on
maps, and images of the historical figure Victoriano Lorenzo, are used by national, business, and peasant entities to claim land.
Identity is complex and multiplex. This dissertation defines peasant identity in statistical terms using emic categories, transcending the binary categories of traditional/modern; rural/urban; and poverty/wealth used in customary peasant studies.
Representative samples of campesinos from several locations in northern Cocle province are systematically interviewed. The resulting emic data are coded and analyzed statistically. Theories defining identity as a bundle of variables are used to envision identity as a multidimensional space. Factor analyses depict peasant identity as interrelated variables including age, gender, education, terms of self-identification, leadership, group membership, identification with community/village, migrations and
movement, regionality/identification with the region, identification with the nation, identification as poor, awareness and understanding of the planned Canal expansion, religion, clothing, identification with land, and CCCE movement membership. A Guttman scale is developed using emic categories of poverty. The politics of development and poverty are discussed. The aim of this study is to describe identity in
terms of emic perceptions, and in terms of nonobvious statistical results.
"Hay que agacharse": The Embodiment of Culture in the Participant Observer Experience and the Return to the West, 2019
Dichotomous categories, such as the West and the rest, primitive and modern, are discussed within... more Dichotomous categories, such as the West and the rest, primitive and modern, are discussed within a phenomenological theory that suggests humans create structures through which we perceive objects. The perception of culture as an object and its construction through the epistemological practices of fieldwork and interpretation within the metaphor of West and non-Western reveals the structure of sociocultural anthropological inquiry and expresses embodiment of the cosmology of nations. Experiences of, and shared understandings regarding, the body, soul, knowledge, thoughts, emotions, memories, spirits, voice, and speech are compared from descriptions, participant observation, and embodiment as a multi-site ethnographic performance artist expressing new genres of ethnography. Harmony is defined as social location.
Paper presented at the American Anthropological Association annual meeting in November 2016.
Th... more Paper presented at the American Anthropological Association annual meeting in November 2016.
This paper considers extensive fieldwork interactions in rural Panama over a decade and a half to focus on the role of informal conversations in developing different understandings of social structures. My fieldwork focus was on ethnobotanical knowledge in general. I was also known in the village through my earlier work as a Peace Corps Volunteer on a project that helped Panamanians to develop commercial opportunities for dance and craft. Dancers perform cucua in an outfit made from a local tree species. As a fieldworker, I collected plant voucher specimens related to the dance in a side project, and villagers told me about international plant conservation agencies which invested resources to educate them about the endangered status of the tree species. The ethnobotanical data itself changed as dance outfit manufacturers utilized new plants in altered social contexts, and then eventually rejected conservation agencies and even burned a donated museum building. ‘The data’ changed to become the conversations about these different aspects. My work extended into intermittent visits. I noticed that villagers spoke differently about the dance, its functions, and their interactions with conservation agencies each time that I visited. Over this long period, villagers explained that dancing expresses a flexible yet firm social structure which extends to include and reject international projects, and had functioned like this in their experiences of history: these understandings were guided by changing forms and processes of ‘the data’ over fifteen years of engagement in the field.
Visual Anthropology, 2009
This dissertation produces knowledge about peasants, called campesinos in the literature about Pa... more This dissertation produces knowledge about peasants, called campesinos in the literature about Panama, living in northern Coclé province. The geographical area of northern Coclé has been redefined over time; as an indigenous reserve promised to Victoriano Lorenzo and indigenous inhabitants of the region in the early twentieth century, as national territory by the Omar Torrijos government, and, most recently, as part of the Panama Canal watershed and spatialized as an area of extreme poverty by the national government. The regional political organization and resistance movement Coordinadora Campesina Contra los Embalses (CCCE) is structured around the common identification of campesino. The CCCE employs liberation theology, and is allied with indigenous groups and the transnational Catholic Church. Contemporary identification as peasants limits residents' recognition of land rights at the national level, although ethnically they are indigenous cholos. Evidence from archival materials and oral history traces the CCCE political structure and resistance movement in a continuous and active struggle for land rights throughout many generations. Symbols such as boundary lines on maps, and images of the historical figure Victoriano Lorenzo, are used by national, business, and peasant entities to claim land.
Identity is complex and multiplex. This dissertation defines peasant identity in statistical terms using emic categories, transcending the binary categories of traditional/modern; rural/urban; and poverty/wealth used in customary peasant studies. Representative samples of campesinos from several locations in northern Coclé province are systematically interviewed. The resulting emic data are coded and analyzed statistically. Theories defining identity as a bundle of variables are used to envision identity as a multidimensional space. Factor analyses depict peasant identity as interrelated variables including age, gender, education, terms of self-identification, leadership, group membership, identification with community/village, migrations and movement, regionality/identification with the region, identification with the nation, identification as poor, awareness and understanding of the planned Canal expansion, religion, clothing, identification with land, and CCCE movement membership. A Guttman scale is developed using emic categories of poverty. The politics of development and poverty are discussed. The aim of this study is to describe identity in terms of emic perceptions, and in terms of nonobvious statistical results.
TV Images of the Katrina Disaster, 2005
First person account from inside the Superdome and surviving Hurricane Katrina within New Orleans... more First person account from inside the Superdome and surviving Hurricane Katrina within New Orleans; and this subjective perspective on media images about the experience.
Books by Nina Muller-Schwarze
The Blood of Victoriano Lorenzo An Ethnography of the Cholos of Northern Coclé Province, Panama, 2015
This book weaves together multiple oral histories and narratives of history, including national P... more This book weaves together multiple oral histories and narratives of history, including national Panamanian history, to show continuity from prehistory to the present of a social movement, the Coordinadora Campesina Contra Los Embalses. This qualitative work followed the quantitative work of my dissertation, in which I surveyed 55 villages in northern Cocle province, Panama. The custom of long conversations in the area meant that the quantitative research was only the beginning and people shared many oral histories. I wove these together in cyclical time in which prehistory, colonial history, the Cocle land reservation, the indigenous fight of Victoriano Lorenzo for land rights within the state, and the contemporary threat of land flooding near the Panama Canal all happen in cycles that intersect with the linear historical narrative of the state. This is an ethnography of historical experience.
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Papers by Nina Muller-Schwarze
century, as national territory by the Omar Torrijos government, and, most recently, as
part of the Panama Canal watershed and spatialized as an area of extreme poverty by the
national government. The regional political organization and resistance movement Coordinadora Campesina Contra los Embalses (CCCE) is structured around the common identification of campesino. The CCCE employs liberation theology, and is allied with
indigenous groups and the transnational Catholic Church. Contemporary identification as peasants limits residents' recognition of land rights at the national level, although
ethnically they are indigenous cholos. Evidence from archival materials and oral history traces the CCCE political structure and resistance movement in a continuous and active struggle for land rights throughout many generations. Symbols such as boundary lines on
maps, and images of the historical figure Victoriano Lorenzo, are used by national, business, and peasant entities to claim land.
Identity is complex and multiplex. This dissertation defines peasant identity in statistical terms using emic categories, transcending the binary categories of traditional/modern; rural/urban; and poverty/wealth used in customary peasant studies.
Representative samples of campesinos from several locations in northern Cocle province are systematically interviewed. The resulting emic data are coded and analyzed statistically. Theories defining identity as a bundle of variables are used to envision identity as a multidimensional space. Factor analyses depict peasant identity as interrelated variables including age, gender, education, terms of self-identification, leadership, group membership, identification with community/village, migrations and
movement, regionality/identification with the region, identification with the nation, identification as poor, awareness and understanding of the planned Canal expansion, religion, clothing, identification with land, and CCCE movement membership. A Guttman scale is developed using emic categories of poverty. The politics of development and poverty are discussed. The aim of this study is to describe identity in
terms of emic perceptions, and in terms of nonobvious statistical results.
This paper considers extensive fieldwork interactions in rural Panama over a decade and a half to focus on the role of informal conversations in developing different understandings of social structures. My fieldwork focus was on ethnobotanical knowledge in general. I was also known in the village through my earlier work as a Peace Corps Volunteer on a project that helped Panamanians to develop commercial opportunities for dance and craft. Dancers perform cucua in an outfit made from a local tree species. As a fieldworker, I collected plant voucher specimens related to the dance in a side project, and villagers told me about international plant conservation agencies which invested resources to educate them about the endangered status of the tree species. The ethnobotanical data itself changed as dance outfit manufacturers utilized new plants in altered social contexts, and then eventually rejected conservation agencies and even burned a donated museum building. ‘The data’ changed to become the conversations about these different aspects. My work extended into intermittent visits. I noticed that villagers spoke differently about the dance, its functions, and their interactions with conservation agencies each time that I visited. Over this long period, villagers explained that dancing expresses a flexible yet firm social structure which extends to include and reject international projects, and had functioned like this in their experiences of history: these understandings were guided by changing forms and processes of ‘the data’ over fifteen years of engagement in the field.
Identity is complex and multiplex. This dissertation defines peasant identity in statistical terms using emic categories, transcending the binary categories of traditional/modern; rural/urban; and poverty/wealth used in customary peasant studies. Representative samples of campesinos from several locations in northern Coclé province are systematically interviewed. The resulting emic data are coded and analyzed statistically. Theories defining identity as a bundle of variables are used to envision identity as a multidimensional space. Factor analyses depict peasant identity as interrelated variables including age, gender, education, terms of self-identification, leadership, group membership, identification with community/village, migrations and movement, regionality/identification with the region, identification with the nation, identification as poor, awareness and understanding of the planned Canal expansion, religion, clothing, identification with land, and CCCE movement membership. A Guttman scale is developed using emic categories of poverty. The politics of development and poverty are discussed. The aim of this study is to describe identity in terms of emic perceptions, and in terms of nonobvious statistical results.
Books by Nina Muller-Schwarze
century, as national territory by the Omar Torrijos government, and, most recently, as
part of the Panama Canal watershed and spatialized as an area of extreme poverty by the
national government. The regional political organization and resistance movement Coordinadora Campesina Contra los Embalses (CCCE) is structured around the common identification of campesino. The CCCE employs liberation theology, and is allied with
indigenous groups and the transnational Catholic Church. Contemporary identification as peasants limits residents' recognition of land rights at the national level, although
ethnically they are indigenous cholos. Evidence from archival materials and oral history traces the CCCE political structure and resistance movement in a continuous and active struggle for land rights throughout many generations. Symbols such as boundary lines on
maps, and images of the historical figure Victoriano Lorenzo, are used by national, business, and peasant entities to claim land.
Identity is complex and multiplex. This dissertation defines peasant identity in statistical terms using emic categories, transcending the binary categories of traditional/modern; rural/urban; and poverty/wealth used in customary peasant studies.
Representative samples of campesinos from several locations in northern Cocle province are systematically interviewed. The resulting emic data are coded and analyzed statistically. Theories defining identity as a bundle of variables are used to envision identity as a multidimensional space. Factor analyses depict peasant identity as interrelated variables including age, gender, education, terms of self-identification, leadership, group membership, identification with community/village, migrations and
movement, regionality/identification with the region, identification with the nation, identification as poor, awareness and understanding of the planned Canal expansion, religion, clothing, identification with land, and CCCE movement membership. A Guttman scale is developed using emic categories of poverty. The politics of development and poverty are discussed. The aim of this study is to describe identity in
terms of emic perceptions, and in terms of nonobvious statistical results.
This paper considers extensive fieldwork interactions in rural Panama over a decade and a half to focus on the role of informal conversations in developing different understandings of social structures. My fieldwork focus was on ethnobotanical knowledge in general. I was also known in the village through my earlier work as a Peace Corps Volunteer on a project that helped Panamanians to develop commercial opportunities for dance and craft. Dancers perform cucua in an outfit made from a local tree species. As a fieldworker, I collected plant voucher specimens related to the dance in a side project, and villagers told me about international plant conservation agencies which invested resources to educate them about the endangered status of the tree species. The ethnobotanical data itself changed as dance outfit manufacturers utilized new plants in altered social contexts, and then eventually rejected conservation agencies and even burned a donated museum building. ‘The data’ changed to become the conversations about these different aspects. My work extended into intermittent visits. I noticed that villagers spoke differently about the dance, its functions, and their interactions with conservation agencies each time that I visited. Over this long period, villagers explained that dancing expresses a flexible yet firm social structure which extends to include and reject international projects, and had functioned like this in their experiences of history: these understandings were guided by changing forms and processes of ‘the data’ over fifteen years of engagement in the field.
Identity is complex and multiplex. This dissertation defines peasant identity in statistical terms using emic categories, transcending the binary categories of traditional/modern; rural/urban; and poverty/wealth used in customary peasant studies. Representative samples of campesinos from several locations in northern Coclé province are systematically interviewed. The resulting emic data are coded and analyzed statistically. Theories defining identity as a bundle of variables are used to envision identity as a multidimensional space. Factor analyses depict peasant identity as interrelated variables including age, gender, education, terms of self-identification, leadership, group membership, identification with community/village, migrations and movement, regionality/identification with the region, identification with the nation, identification as poor, awareness and understanding of the planned Canal expansion, religion, clothing, identification with land, and CCCE movement membership. A Guttman scale is developed using emic categories of poverty. The politics of development and poverty are discussed. The aim of this study is to describe identity in terms of emic perceptions, and in terms of nonobvious statistical results.